


Taking Control

by Deannie



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Episode: s01e01 The Switchman, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-02-02
Updated: 1998-02-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate version of "Switchman." What if Jim hadn't waited around for "Dr. Sandburg" in the hospital?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Control

Jim Ellison sat in the examination room, trying not to hear everything within a twelve-mile radius. Simon had given him the afternoon off--the  _afternoon!_ \--and Jim was sure that he'd go crazy before it reached six pm.

If he wasn't crazy already.

> "So what do you think, Barry?"
> 
> "I think the guy is crazy. Hearing things, smelling things... Maybe we should see about getting him a psych evaluation..."

Jim had no idea how far away the voices were, but he was damned sure he wasn't supposed to be hearing this discussion. Just like all the other discussions he wasn't supposed to hear. It seemed like, overnight, his world had turned into this loud, painful Hell of overlapping conversations. Hundreds at a time. So many that he couldn't hope to make them all stop before they blew out what little was left of his brain.

"Stop," he whispered painfully, in a voice that made his head hurt all the more. "Stop, stop, stop. Stop!"

The doctor was approaching his exam room again--or, hell, maybe the guy had taken off to the Subway down the street, and Jim was about to hear him order a ham and swiss. Whichever, Jim wasn't going to sit around waiting for the guy to tell him he was crazy.

The detective was dressed and out of the building before the short, curly-haired "doctor" ever reached the fourth floor.

* * *

"I thought you said he was in room 425."

The young woman shrugged. "I thought he was, Blair. I guess he got tired of waiting for Dr. McCoy to get back to him."

Blair Sandburg ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Damnit! He'd almost had a full-fledged Sentinel in his grasp, and he'd let him go!

Kelly was waiting for some sort of response, and the Anthropology student shook himself from his musings long enough to give her a peck on the cheek. "Thanks, Kel. Look, I gotta go. Are we having lunch tomorrow?"

The girl smiled. "Sure. 12:30, at the Sink?"

Blair gave her a megawatt grin. "No problem. I'll meet you there."

* * *

"Damnit, John!"  _Mrs. Lowery in 102, maybe?_  "I told you I wouldn't be home until 7! Do you expect my world to just stop for you because you get off work early and want something to eat? Can't you cook!?"

"I know, Mom. I'm sorry."  _That just has to be the kid in the building across the street. He's been skipping school again._  "Look, it won't happen again, I promise. I was just..."

"Stop it," Jim Ellison whispered, trying to block the voices that had kept him awake for hours now. "Stop it, stop it,  _stop it!_ "

He punched his pillow angrily before rising from his bed and padding down the stairs to his loft's main floor. The patio was too inviting to resist, and he opened the doors, wincing at the incredibly loud hinges that he was sure only he could hear.

"You listen to me, young man," the woman with the truant son was yelling. "If I  _ever_  catch you hanging around with those boys again, I swear I'll beat you black and blue!"

Jim heard the child grumble faintly, before the mother's voice rose to punishing levels. "Damnit, child, where are you going!? Don't you  _dare_  walk out that door, young man!" The sound of the door slamming was almost enough to bring Jim to his knees.

He waited, trying to block out the sound of the mother who was now crying, and caught sight of the young man walking out the door of the dilapidated walk-up. As the boy turned a corner, Jim's eye caught on a coin on the sidewalk. It was a block away, in the middle of the night, but somehow he knew, if he focused enough, he could tell exactly what kind of coin it was...

_A dime... And the year it was minted...?_

 

The sound of his answering machine suddenly had the police detective trying to suck in air, fighting the dizziness in his head as he stumbled toward the kitchen. What the  _fuck_  just happened?! He'd been looking at that damn coin just a second ago, and then...

"...leave a message after the beep." <beep>

"Jim! Where the hell are you?" Rafe didn't sound angry, exactly. Just tired and irritated. "It's almost four o'clock, and you were supposed to relieve me twenty minutes ago!" There was a pause on the line, and Jim glanced at the clock. He'd been on the patio for more than an hour. "Look, Ellison," Rafe offered. "I'm giving you ten more minutes before I haul Captain Banks out of bed and get  _him_  to take over for me... You better get your ass down here, man."

Jim didn't bother to call his fellow officer just yet. He ran upstairs, trying to ignore the implications of what had just happened. He'd been on that patio for an hour, and he barely remembered ten minutes of it!

_God? If I'm going crazy, could you at least make me crazy enough not to realise it?_

* * *

"So what do you think?"

As usual, Blair's test subject gave him no indication of what he was thinking. Damnit, why was he stuck doing this research on the effects of violence on lower primates? He should be out tracking down that guy, Ellison.

Somehow, Blair just knew that the man who had walked out on fifty different tests in the hospital that afternoon was the real thing. A Sentinel. God, Blair had been looking for one his whole adult life, and he was just going to let this one slip through his fingers?

"Not likely." He turned to the small Barbary ape in the cage next to his couch. "You think I should go after him?" No response. "I think so, too."

He'd plan it all tonight. That was the secret of a good researcher. Plan it all out in advance, but leave yourself enough room to improvise if you have to.

The first thing he needed to do was to get in some sweet talking with Kelly.

"It'll be perfect, right?"

Again, he ignored his subject's silence, and let his mind wander.

* * *

It was nearer four-thirty by the time Jim finally pulled his truck up behind Rafe's tired old sedan, which stood across the street from a run-down warehouse on the wharf. This was the latest possible hide-out for their elusive Switchman, and Jim could only hope that they nailed the guy before Jim himself completed his journey toward insanity. The detective took a deep breath, ready for a serious dressing-down by his fellow officer, and froze.

What was that he was smelling? Not gas, not like at the other warehouse...

"Ellison!" Rafe's hissed warning and his hand on Jim's shoulder pulled the older detective from his search for that smell. "Are you trying to announce us, or something?!"

"Sorry," Jim gasped, heading toward Rafe's car while trying to catch his breath. "I thought I smelled something."

 

"Great, Super Jim strikes again," Rafe muttered sarcastically. He'd heard from some of the SWAT guys about how Jim had been seeing things and smelling things out by Aubrey. And Jim was supposed to have taken the early shift of this surveillance, but Simon had called Rafe at the last moment to switch with him. The younger cop really hoped his fellow officer would hold off going off the deep end until they got this damn bomber.

 

Jim had heard his friend's muttered deprecation, but didn't take the time to respond to it. He was still smelling that--whatever it was--and now, he could hear something as well. Something like nails hitting a can...

"Shit," he whispered quietly. "Rafe, something's going on over there."

The younger man looked incredulously toward the darkened warehouse. "What are you talking about? That place is dead--has been all night."

"No," Jim averred, pulling out his gun and moving from the car, toward the warehouse. "Something's going on. Trust me." He looked back to see Rafe reluctantly following him. "Call for backup," the older detective advised.

"Sure. Back-up," Rafe was whispering as he headed back to his car. "In little white suits."

Jim didn't particularly care if Rafe thought he was crazy, just now. He could hear that sound of nails and cans again, and, now that he was closer, he identified that scent as some sort of herbal oil. Patchouli, maybe. Carolyn had loved the stuff, so he supposed he should be able to identify it.

He felt more than heard Rafe slipping into the warehouse behind him, and Jim primed himself for action, trying to locate the source of the noise.

But there were too many other noises around him. Rafe's ragged breathing, easing out now, as he recovered from his sprint from the car; the sound of water dripping on one of the upper floors; his own heartbeat. They all confused him enough that he took a long moment, trying to filter at least some of it out.

 

As it turned out, that long moment was all the Switchman needed to be alerted to their presence. A wild shot went above the heads of the two cops, and Rafe instinctively ducked. He looked up in shock to find his fellow officer frozen in place, staring at nothing, as another shot came perilously close to him.

"Jim! Get down!" Rafe hissed as loudly as he dared. When he got no response, the young officer made a snap decision. He reared up, grabbing at Jim's shirt and trying to pull the older cop down with him.

 

And, in the second that in took Jim to come to his senses and drop, the Switchman squeezed off another shot, catching Rafe full in the chest.

Jim crouched in horror, listening to a heartbeat he shouldn't have been able to hear, as Rafe began to slip away.

"No!" the older cop whispered in horror. "NO!"

His fault. It was Jim's fault that Rafe was dying. He could only do one thing to redeem himself.

Find the Switchman and make him pay.

With that decision, Jim's mind seemed to clear. He could hear the Switchman's heartbeat, as he tried to move to a better location to take Jim down as well. The cop circled the area silently, waiting for a chance to catch his prey.

The chance came rather quickly, and Jim found himself with a clear shot of a slight young man carrying a large, high-caliber weapon. The cop didn't question how he could see so clearly in the darkened warehouse, he simply took a bead on the shooter and raised his voice.

"Freeze! Cascade P.D.!"

The shooter turned toward him, raising his gun, and that was all the provocation Jim needed to loose his bullet and send the bomber straight to Hell.

* * *

Blair Sandburg fought through a hundred Anthropology tests, his mind squarely on the lunch date he'd made with Kelly. He finally had it all planned. He'd ask her a few questions about the tests they'd run on Ellison--purely scientific curiousity, you understand--and then see what he could do about getting the cop's home address out of her. He was sure he could do it. She couldn't resist him, right?

His early morning musings were disrupted by the ringing of his phone.

"Hello?"

"Blair?" Kelly sounded frenzied. "Listen, I haven't got too much time here, but I wanted to let you know that I probably won't have time to make lunch."

"What's going on?"

"We've got a cop-shooting. The guy's going into surgery now, and it'll take a while to get things sorted out." She sighed tiredly. "Your 'super' friend is involved."

Blair felt an unaccountable fear grip him. "Ellison? Is he going to make it?"

"He's fine. It's another cop we're worried about. Listen, Blair, I've got to go, okay? I'll call you later?"

"Yeah," Blair agreed distractedly, barely noticing as his girlfriend rang off.

Ellison was at the hospital? It sounded like it--how else would Kelly know the would-be Sentinel was involved? Blair looked at the test booklets before him and came to a decision. He pulled on his jacket, and headed for the hospital.

* * *

_His fault, his fault, his fault..._

The thought ran through Jim Ellison's mind endlessly. If he'd just been paying attention! If Rafe hadn't had to drag him out of the line of fire, the kid would be fine now.

"Jim?"

Simon Banks sat beside his detective, but Ellison barely acknowledged him. "Look, Jim. I know you want to blame yourself for this, but it could have happened to anyone."

"Who was he?" Jim asked quietly, ignoring his captain's platitudes.

"The Switchman?" It didn't have to be a question; Simon knew who Jim was asking about. Still, it bought the police captain time. Jim was already certain that Rafe's injuries were his fault. If he found out who the Switchman was...?

"Yes, Simon," Jim grated wearily. "The Switchman." He pegged his captain with angry eyes. "I know you know."

Simon took a deep breath. "Her name was Veronica Saras. Her father was--"

"One of my team in Peru," Jim finished almost silently. It was more his fault than he'd thought it was. Saras had killed ten people--eleven, if Rafe didn't make it through surgery. And Jim was sure she'd done it all to get back at him. He couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't put people at risk because of his past or his slipping sanity. He took a deep breath.

"Simon, I think I'm going to go home," he offered, keeping his voice exhausted but hopeful. "I need... I need to catch a shower. Maybe a little sleep." His eyes when they met his captain's were clear and determined. "Will you call me if I'm not back before you know something?"

Simon watched his detective with trepidation. Jim was planning something. He had to be. He'd never go placidly if he really meant to come back. Simon remembered vividly when Henri Brown was shot last year. Jim had waited in the hospital for two days for his friend to regain consciousness.

Something had to be going on here.

"Jim--"

"Simon, I'm okay," Jim whispered, forcing a slight smile. "I just... I think I'd rather be alone when I lose it, you know?"

Simon grudgingly nodded as his detective rose to his feet. "I'll call as soon as we know something," he promised.

Jim forced a smile again. "Thanks, Captain." As he headed out the door, Jim added almost silently, "For everything."

* * *

Blair was out of breath by the time he reached the surgery waiting room. Kelly was at the nurse's station just beyond it, and, after a quick look in at nearly ten nervous cops, the young anthropologist headed for her.

"Blair!?" she whispered in surprise, keeping her voice down in deference to the waiting men. "What are you doing here?"

He smiled ingenuously. "Just wanted to see how you're doing. How's the cop?"

Kelly shrugged fatalistically. "Doesn't look good. They lost him three times before they could get him into surgery." She looked him up and down again. "What are you  _really_  doing here?"

"Hey! Can't I come to see my girlfriend every once in a while?"

"You came to see Ellison, right?"

"No!" Blair lied expertly. "Is he here?"

Kelly cursed under her breath. "No, Blair. He's not. He took off a few minutes ago."

"Oh." The way Blair's face fell almost made Kelly laugh. "So what happened?"

The nurse shrugged. "We don't have a lot of information. Apparently that guy that's been bombing all the bridges and stuff over the last year or so got the drop on your friend and his partner. I'm guessing Ellison took the guy down, because the other cop, Rafe, wasn't it a position to do much more than just survive."

"He got the drop on them?" Blair asked incredulously. "Ellison should have heard the guy coming a mile away."

"Ellison is a certified nutcase, Blair," Kelly responded unkindly. "When the EMTs got there, I guess he was just kneeling beside his partner, totally catatonic. They had to shake him forever to get him out of it. Then he started whispering about it all being his fault. He kept saying he shouldn't have been focusing on the noises."

Blair looked up at his girlfriend for a solid minute before her words sank in. When they did, he felt a cold dread spreading through him.

"And he just left?"

"Yeah."

"Where'd he go?"

Kelly looked at him as if maybe  _he_  was the nutcase. "I don't know, Blair. Why?"

"'Cause I have a very bad feeling about this," he muttered, reaching behind her to grab the chart he'd seen a few moments ago.

James Ellison, 852 Prospect...

He was out the door before she could protest.

* * *

Jim looked around himself, noting the stark room, barely decorated. Carolyn had been the decorator. And when she left, she'd taken all the life in the loft with her.

Still, Jim guessed that would just make it easier for them to dispose of his stuff. Simon would be surprised to know that Jim had a brother--more surprised still that that brother knew less about Jim than Simon himself did. Steven would probably throw his stuff out the moment it came to him, but at least Carolyn would get the loft. She'd always hated the place, but she could get some money for it.

He stared at the gun in his hands, surprised for a moment that his life could ever come to this. He wasn't the type to commit suicide--of course, he wasn't the type to start hearing voices and smelling things, either.

_Maybe when you lose your mind, other things change, too._

All he knew was that, whether Rafe lived or died, no one would ever have to pay for his mistakes again.

He sat, contemplating, for a long moment, listening to the cacophony going on around him. Someone needed a new muffler, by the sound of the car that shrieked to a halt outside. Though, by the rattle of the door as it slammed shut, perhaps the guy needed a new car entirely.

The footsteps from the car started heading up the stairs of Jim's apartment building, and the detective tried to block them out, raising his gun to his chin. He supposed he should be feeling something at this point--guilt, sorrow, anger... But he contented himself with simply feeling that he was doing what a truly crazy man would do, without thought or remorse. His finger tightened on the trigger...

But something distracted him. A smell. Light, musky... Jungle flowers and a man's sweat... And the sounds that came with the smell:

"Come on, man. Don't do it. I know he's gonna do it..."

Who was going to do what? Jim wondered. And how did the man out there know?

A knock on his door startled the detective, but he simply tightened his grip on his gun and ignored the interruption. He didn't call out to the person. When a suicide did that, he wanted to be stopped. And Jim simply didn't. He wasn't going to allow himself to drop into insanity, to be shut away forever and drugged to the gills so the noises couldn't follow him. He was taking control. A control he desperately needed just now.

As he prepared himself, the knock came again. "Detective Ellison?" the voice came again, desperate and caring at the same time. "Come on, man, I know you're in there. Talk to me."

Jim stopped, listening to the voice. He wanted to listen--he didn't know why. It was just a voice that his soul told him he could trust. He lowered the gun a fraction and waited for the man to speak again.

 

"Come on, Detective," Blair whispered. Was the guy already gone? No. No, something told the anthropologist that Jim Ellison was still alive--though certainly not well--and sitting in that loft alone. He dropped his voice instinctively, and the words that came from him were unrehearsed and totally out of his control.

"I know this is freaking you out, Detective," he whispered. "I know you feel like everything that happened with your partner was all your fault, but you're wrong. I can help you, man, but you have  _got_  to open this door and talk to me."

 

Talk to him. Well, Jim supposed he could do that. Of its own volition, his hand reached out to place the gun on the table, and he found himself rising and heading for the door.

The young man he saw waiting for him almost made him shut that door again. A waif, with wild curly hair that reached his shoulders. But the look in the young man's eyes gave him pause.

There was a caring there, a shadow of something Jim barely remembered.

"Who are you?"

The young man blushed and ducked his head. "Blair Sandburg. I've... I've been trying to get in touch with you for a while now."

"Why?"

 

The detective's voice held no interest, and Blair's heart sank. How was he supposed to get through to him?

"I..." The sentence completed itself. "I came to try to help."

Something in the way he said it, or perhaps in the way he looked up at the larger man, made the detective stop, and a small smile broke out.

"I could use some help just now," Ellison replied, moving to the side to allow the younger man entrance.

 

Somewhere in their souls, twin panthers purred in unison.

* * *  
The End


End file.
